Further response to "Most Wanted Painting"

This is a continuation of a response to the class blog's post about Most Wanted Painting.

This painting was created from surveys of what people like to see in a painting, an attempt to make the "most wanted painting".

There's a radio piece on This American Life about the artists, Komar & Melamid, and how they did this, and then took the same concept and applied it to music. With the music survey they didn't just stop at making a song that everyone would like, they also tried to make a song that everyone would hate. The radio piece features clips of both songs, and Ira comments how much he likes the "bad" song and how boring the "good" song is. To me, the "good" song sounds like something I would hear in the dentist's office. This makes sense, I suppose, that a dentist's office would want to play music that everyone likes. The dentist's chair doesn't attract a specific type of person; everyone has to get their teeth cleaned and so the radio station that they choose to play should probably be friendly to everyone. Of course, this brings up a chicken-egg sort of argument: If dentist offices everywhere started playing heavy metal tomorrow, would everyone start to like it? What if dentist offices and elevators started to change the type of music in a gradual progression to heavy metal...Would a survey of what the public likes reflect these societal changes?

There's a part of the radio documentary where they discuss the differences in "most wanted" paintings when they are made with data from different countries. Many were similar, but the Netherlands preferred abstract art to realism, likely reflecting on the liberal stance that that country makes on many issues.

So then, if my dentist starts playing some light rock instead of that smooth jazz, and then the next time I visit I hear a little heavier stuff, all the way until I'm rocking out to Slayer while swishing fluoride, will society's music tastes change? Are we like frogs in hot water, where if you turn up the burner slow enough we won't jump out of the pot?

Oh gosh, now what does this say about our "innate" ideas of beauty?